Recently, there is proposed an optical switch module in which a deflection element having an electro-optic effect is used (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2002-318398. In such optical switch modules, as shown in FIG. 1, deflection elements 101 and 102 made of an electro-optic material (for example, electro-optic crystal such as PZT and PLZT) are mounted on a slab optical waveguide substrate 100.
That is, as shown in FIG. 1, the slab optical waveguide substrate 100 is configured by integrally forming an input-channel optical waveguide (input-channel optical waveguide array) 103 to which an optical signal is inputted, a plural collimator lenses (input-side lens array) 104 which forms the inputted optical signal in parallel light (collimated light), a slab optical waveguide 105 through which the optical signal formed in the parallel light propagates, a plural collective lenses (output-side lens array) 106 which collects the optical signal propagating formed in the parallel light, and an output-channel optical waveguide (output-channel optical waveguide array) 107 which outputs the optical signal. In the slab optical waveguide substrate 100, first and second deflection element mounting openings 112 and 113 are also formed to mount the deflection elements 101 and 102.
As to production of the input-side deflection element (first deflection element array) 101 and the output-side deflection element (second deflection element array) 102, thin-film slab optical waveguides made of electro-optic materials (for example, electro-optic crystal such as PZT and PLZT) are formed on conductive substrates, prism-shaped electrodes 110 are formed on surfaces of the thin-film slab optical waveguides, and end faces are polished to complete the input-side and output-side deflection elements 101 and 102. In the optical switch module, the input-side deflection element 101 is mounted on the first deflection element mounting opening 112 between the plural collimator lenses 104 and slab optical waveguide 105 on the slab optical waveguide substrate 100, and the output-side deflection element 102 is mounted on the second deflection element mounting opening 113 between the slab optical waveguide 105 and the plural collective lenses 106.
In the optical switch module having the configuration of FIG. 1, when desired voltages are applied to the prism-shaped electrodes 110 formed in the input-side and output-side deflection elements 101 and 102, the optical signal which is inputted from the input-channel optical waveguide 103 and formed in the parallel light by the plural collimator lenses 104 is deflected by the input-side deflection element 101 to propagate through the slab optical waveguide 105, the optical signal is deflected by the output-side deflection element 102 again and collected by the plural collective lenses 106, and the optical signal is coupled to a desired output-channel optical waveguide 107. Therefore, a path of the optical signal outputted from the input-channel optical waveguide 103 is switched and outputted from the desired output-channel optical waveguide 107.
Additionally, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2004-37704 proposes a structure of an optical switch module which can reduce the number of channels and production costs. However, in the conventional techniques, aligning in active alignment is hardly performed with high accuracy.